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Tangled Roots of an Atrocity

(U.S. News) David E. Kaplan - The Russians call them the Vakhabity - the Wahhabis - using the name for adherents of Saudi Islam to describe religious militants in their Muslim republics. They began appearing as early as 1987, before the Soviet Union broke up, according to Alex Alexiev, a terrorism specialist at the Center for Security Policy. As part of a global effort to spread Saudi-style fundamentalism, Saudi foundations supplied money and missionaries for mosques and schools in Soviet Muslim republics. Throughout the 1980s, Saudi aid had focused on Afghanistan, where bin Laden and others helped finance "holy warriors" fighting Soviet troops. With the war's end, jihadists turned to other conflicts where they saw Muslims under siege, notably in Kashmir, Bosnia, and, with the Russian invasion in 1994, Chechnya. Tens of millions of dollars poured into the impoverished region - money that went not merely for mosques but also for munitions. Among the key funders, investigators say: the Riyadh-based al Haramain Foundation, through its offices in nearby Azerbaijan and Dagestan as well as in the U.S.
2004-09-14 00:00:00
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